The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus turning off a back light of a display section after the passage of a predetermined period of time without any operations.
An Image forming apparatus is provided with a LCD (liquid crystal display) panel displaying information on copying and/or printing performed by a main body. Also, the image forming apparatus is provided with a back light in the back portion of the LCD panel to improve visibility of the information displayed on the LCD panel.
Among the conventional image forming apparatus is one that turns off the back light to save power consumption thereof when a state continues for a predetermined period of time where there is no user's operation.
However, in the conventional image forming apparatus above the back light illuminates its entire display area of the LCD panel until it is turned off. In other words, the light illuminates not only a region displaying information but also a region not displaying any information. Therefore, there is still room for more power saving on the back light.
There, an invention on an image forming apparatus has been disclosed in which a plurality of back lights are provided on the rear side of the LCD panel that only illuminate positions corresponding to positions at which character information is displayed selectively (refer to Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2003-279927 bulletin).
Application of the invention disclosed in the patent literature above to the conventional image forming apparatus can further reduce power consumption of the back light.
However, it is often the case that users of the image forming apparatus either do not look at any information displayed on the LCD panel at all or only look at part of the information after having operated a copy start button. For example, when the number of sheets to copy is small, a user, watching the printed matter being discharged from the paper discharge section and watching that the discharge of the printed matter is completed, then takes it away without looking at the information displayed on the LCD panel. Also, when the image forming apparatus is performing a plurality of print jobs consecutively, the user only looks at part of the information such as current status of an ongoing print job and/or order in a queue of the print job the user has ordered, and so forth. Moreover, when a user orders a run of a print job to the image forming apparatus from a personal computer, the user cannot look at the information displayed on the LCD panel of the image forming apparatus.
Thus, in the conventional image forming apparatus to which the invention that is disclosed in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2003-279927 bulletin is applied, there is room for reduction in power consumption of the back light.
Therefore, the present invention is directed to providing an image forming apparatus capable of further reducing power consumption of a back light.